Decorah residents volunteer at "Extreme Makeover" home

Posted: Sun, Oct 9, 2011 9:42 PM

The "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" crew is leaving West Union after building a new house for Audrey Gibbs and her family. The crew had a lot of help from volunteers all over Northeast Iowa--including from Decorah.

One such volunteer was Perry Numedahl of Decorah, who is friends with some of the people who led the drive to nominate Audrey Gibbs for "Extreme Makeover." He was at the construction site on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, giving chiropractic adjustments the first two days then, when strong winds blew over the tent he was in Friday morning, working as a security guard, catering helper and "a little bit of everything" the rest of the day.

Decorah volunteers such as Teresa Dehning who were at the construction site on Friday afternoon got a surprise--a visit to the farm house by rocker Bret Michaels. Some Decorah volunteers even got to be in the background as "Extreme"shot scenes of Michaels' visit.

Among the Decorah businesses sending crews to West Union during the week-long construction project were Winneshiek Medical Center, Farm Credit Services and Hacker Nelson CPAs. A dozen employees of the accounting firm drove to West Union early last week, while several Farm Credit employees worked on Friday.

That's in addition to Decorah businesses like Hawkeye Stages and Sodko whose contributions were in services or materials. Dan and Melinda Christopher of Sharps Trucking & Roll-Off Service in Decorah supplied the site with all their roll-off dumpsters. Employee Jamie McConnell and/or Dan Christopher were at the site everyday moving and dumping dumpsters at the Fayette County Landfill. Lynch BBQ Company out of Decorah catered the VIP tent and the crew of Extreme Makeover as well.

Crews showed the new house to Audrey Gibbs and her family on Sunday. It includes a square "silo" on the west end of the house, a completely new house attached to the east and lots of new landscaping and other features.

(decorahnews.com readers: If you volunteered at the West Union location, we'd love to hear from you! E-mail us at news@decorahnews.com)